Child mental health to improve

11th October 2012

Steps are being taken by medical leaders to improve the approach to child mental health in the UK.

A number of Royal Colleges have worked together to transform knowledge, skills and attitudes to child mental health by developing an ‘e-portal’ with the aim of improving mental health outcomes for children.

The work is being led by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health with the educational and advice programme set to be developed over the next two years.

Funded by £2.2m from the Department of Health, it will be designed to result in quicker identification and diagnosis of young people with mental health problems.

Vice president for education at the RCPCH, Dr Alistair Thomson, said: “This electronic portal will provide a high quality learning resource to enhance the knowledge, skills and confidence of the multitude of professionals that work directly or indirectly with children and young people with mental health problems.

“It will help identify children and adolescents with mental health issues at the earliest possible stage thereby not only directly improving children’s health and other associated benefits like improving their educational achievement, but thanks to early intervention, preventing conditions worsening when that child moves into adulthood.”

The consortium includes the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Psychiatrists Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Royal College of Nursing, the British Psychological Society, National Children’s Bureau and children’s charity YoungMinds. The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy will be delivering the e-learning materials that relate to counselling for the programme.